As the midshipmen awaited his signal to serve him and his guests, Vancouver filled their cups with port wine and proposed a toast. “To my good friend, King Tamaahamaah, and to our own good King George,” he said. “Long may you both rule and prosper, God willing, and long may our people grow in friendship with each other.” Vancouver gestured with his cup to his guests, then lifted it to lips and drank deeply.
Vancouver had delivered his toast in English. Kamehameha had by now gained sufficient command of the language from ‘Olohana and ‘Aikake to understand much of it. Ka‘ahumanu understood none of it. But she raised her cup in imitation of the captain. Now she looked to Kamehameha for guidance. Kamehameha looked to Vancouver, who was gesturing again with his cup, encouraging Kameha to drink. Kamehameha tasted the port. He frowned and spat the wine back into his cup. Ka‘ahumanu set her own cup down on the table.
“The haole ‘awa was much too sweet,” Kamehameha later told my father. “It was like drinking sugar cane.”
If Vancouver was offended, he gave no indication. “I am sorry our wine is not to your liking, Tamaahamaah,” he said. “It is an acquired taste even among us.” Then, with a nod to the midshipmen, Vancouver said, “Let us eat.”
One of the midshipmen set to carving generous slices of meat from the pig. He served Kamehameha first. Then, as he began to serve pork and bananas to Ka‘ahumanu, Kamehameha reached across the table with his long arm and stayed the midshipman’s hand. Looking directly at Vancouver, he said, “No, Wankuwai, it is kapu for our women to eat this food, even on your great canoe.”
Ka‘ahumanu looked to Vancouver, silently beseeching him to intervene. Vancouver smiled at her and said to Kamehameha, “I would not risk our friendship by imposing upon your own customs, Tamaahamaah.” Satisfied with this, Kamehameha released the startled midshipman’s wrist. Vancouver gestured to the youth, who removed the offending dish. Ka‘ahumanu tasted the salted beef and sauerkraut, but did not like them. Thus, as Kamehameha and Vancouver ate their fill of pork and bananas, she had to content herself with yams, sweet potatoes, and breadfruit.
After the midshipmen had cleared away the dishes and left the cabin, Vancouver said to Kamehameha and Ka‘ahumanu, “It much pains me to see you angry with each other,” he spoke slowly, in his rudimentary Hawaiian. “Tamaahamaah cares much for you, Ta‘ahoomanoo,” he said. “He has told me much times that you are his greatest woman.”
Ka‘ahumanu was not placated. “Kamehameha does not honor me as his wahine nui,” she said.
Vancouver looked to Kamehameha. “What you say to this, Tamaahamaah?” he asked.
“Ka‘ahumanu has always been my wahine nui,” Kamehameha said. Turning to her, he said, “You know that I do not feel this way about my other partners, Ka‘ahumanu. You are special to me. That is why I will not allow other men to sleep with you, and why you make me unhappy when you flirt with them. You will be my wahine nui for as long as I shall live.”
“Am I more special to you than Keopuolani, on whom you will no doubt get a child some day?” she asked.
“Yes, of course,” Kamehameha replied.
“If I am more special to you than Keopuolani, will you give me her own son in hanai to raise?”
“Yes,” said Kameha, “I will.”
“Then I will forgive you,” said Ka‘ahumanu, who rose from her chair, and crossed the cabin to Kamehameha on the other side of the table. The two threw themselves into each other’s arms, rubbed noses, and wailed loudly. Vancouver kept his seat at the head of the table and smiled beatifically throughout this display, so characteristic of our own people in those days and so foreign to his.
Ka‘ahumanu ignored our “Uncle Ka‘iana” from that day forward.
Reconciliation or no, Ka‘ahumanu was still upset that Kamehameha had denied her the pleasure of eating forbidden foods. “By what right did you tell Wankuwai not to serve the pig and roasted bananas to me?” she challenged Kamehameha that night as they lay side by side. “He is haole; his ways are different, and we were away from own people.”
“Is it not enough for you that we have eaten at the same table on Wankuwai’s great canoe this night?” Kamehameha demanded. “I can never allow you or any other wahine to eat pig and roasted bananas because the god Kāne has reserved these foods for men, who are his direct descendants. He would punish me for it. So never speak to me of this again, and do not expect to eat with me or any other kāne again. It is best that you forget it ever happened.”
Of course, as is the way of women, Ka‘ahumanu forgot nothing.
Relishing Kamehameha’s company, Vancouver extended his stay at Kawaihae by several weeks beyond his original departure date. During this time, Kamehameha offered anew to trade any goods Vancouver might desire for haole weapons, an offer the British naval captain once more declined. But in token of his friendship, Vancouver offered to direct his ship’s carpenter to help Kameha’s people build a small schooner like the Fair American. Kamehameha readily accepted.
As work on the vessel progressed, Kameha and Vancouver passed the days and evenings discussing all manner of subjects. Vancouver, whose command of our language was improving daily, was especially interested in learning more about our people’s religious practices; Kamehameha, with a likewise improving grasp of English, craved more knowledge of the people of Vancouver’s far-off island, and of the mō‘ī who ruled it.
“Are there many more people on your island, Wankuwei, many more haoles such as you?” Kamehameha asked one day.
“Yes, and they are beyond counting,” Vancouver replied.
“And your mō‘ī. is Ki‘ine Keoke?” Kameha asked.
“Yes, King George,” Vancouver affirmed.
“Is this Ki‘ine Keoke powerful? Does he have many great canoes such as yours—and many warriors and pū kuni ahi and pū po‘ohiwi?” Vancouver looked quizzically at Kamehameha. “Kano‘ono and mūk‘e,” he clarified.
“Yes, he does,” Vancouver replied. “King George is very powerful. He must be strong to defend us against our enemies.”
“Do your people have many enemies?”
“Not many, but our enemies are also powerful—the French, for example, and the Spanish.”
“Will these enemies of yours come here?”
“They may well do so,” Vancouver responded. Kamehameha pondered this, but said nothing more.
Another day, as he was admiring the great heiau of the god Kūkā‘ilimoku at Kawaihae, Vancouver asked Kameha, “Why do your people worship so many gods? There is but one God, who made the heavens and the earth and all living things upon the earth.”
So far as Kamehameha was concerned, the Englishman might as well have asked why our people breathed. He was amused by Vancouver’s ignorance. “The night and daytime skies are not the same,” Kameha said. “The sea is different from the air and the clouds. The land is not the same as the sea. The volcano is different from the rest of the land. No two plants are alike. How could one god have made all these things? It is not possible.”
When Vancouver persisted, Kamehameha challenged him. “Come with me to the pali at Kealakekua, Wankuwei,” he said. “We will stand on the edge. If you jump off and your god saves you, then I will believe in him, and I will jump too.”
“God does not intervene in that fashion,” Vancouver replied.
“Then your god is not of much use,” said Kamehameha. “Our gods are better.” And there the subject rested.
Vancouver’s confidence that other haoles would inevitably follow the British to Hawai‘i increased Kamehameha’s concern about his people’s future. Already, he and his chieftains had witnessed the coming of armed trading ships from America, Spain, and Portugal.
“A few haole great canoes at a time we can deal with, as we dealt with Kāpena Kuke and his people,” he mused to my father and his other advisers. “But what if many more come here at once, with their pū kuni ahi and pū po‘ohiwi, and what if they should come with hostile intent? Even if all our people are united agains
t them, we will still need a powerful haole ally to safeguard us.”
Already favorably disposed to the British by virtue of his trust in his two English advisers and his growing friendship with Vancouver, Kamehameha thus approached the English sea captain to request the protection of the most powerful haole monarch known to him: King George III of England.
“If you would give King George dominion over Ohwyhee and any others of these islands that may come into your possession in the future,” Vancouver said, “he would gladly extend his protection to you.”
“Would your king come here to rule us?” asked Kamehameha.
“No, he would not,” Vancouver replied.
“Then I would do this, Wankuwei, but how shall I?”
“You must advise King George of your offer in a letter,” said Vancouver. Knowing that Kamehameha could neither read nor write, he added, “Tell John Young—‘Olohana—what you wish to say; he will write it and I will deliver it.”
Thus, on the deck of Vancouver’s ship a few days later, and in the presence of his chiefs, Vancouver, and the ship’s crew, Kamehameha dictated a letter to ‘Olohana “ceding” our islands—Vancouver’s word—to the king of England. When ‘Olohana had finished writing the letter, Kameha took the quill pen from him, and with the haole’s assistance, made his mark on it. Kamehameha wielded the quill awkwardly in his large hand and his “signature” was no more than an illegible scrawl. ‘Olohana and Vancouver signed the letter underneath Kameha’s mark.
“By signing our names, we are swearing that your mark is true,” Vancouver explained to Kamehameha. He then turned to the ship’s company and announced, “Tamaahamaah, king of Ohwyhee, has just granted this island and all his future domains to his sovereign majesty, King George. From this day forth, Ohwyhee is English soil!” The crew cheered this proclamation lustily. The Discovery’s three-pound guns roared a salute that echoed round the bay. On shore, one of Vancouver’s officers ran the Union Jack up a pole erected for the occasion just below the great heiau. There followed a boisterous celebration, during which much rum was consumed by the haoles and a few of Kamehameha’s chieftains, to their later regret.
Vancouver had lately learned from his ship’s carpenter that the Hawai‘ian canoe builders working under him were now sufficiently skilled to complete Kamehameha’s great canoe with ‘Olohana’s help. “Your people are building you a fine ship,” he told Kameha as he inspected their work the next morning. “They can build you many more, I am certain.”
Vancouver departed Hawai‘i a few days later, never to return. He carried with him Kameha’s letter to King George III. In anticipation of his alliance with Britain, Kamehameha named his new ship the “Pelekane”—“Britannia”—in honor of King George, and proudly flew the British Union Jack from its mast. The English monarch never answered his letter.
As the year of Vancouver’s last visit to our islands drew to a close, Kalanikūpule and his uncle, Kā‘eokūlani, the ruler of Kaua‘i, had a falling out. Kā‘eokūlani had attacked O‘ahu intending to depose Kalanikūpule and seize the island for himself. During several days of bloody fighting, the advantage shifted back and forth between the two sides until a British sea captain, one William Brown, turned the tide in Kalanikūpule’s favor by cannonading Kā‘eokūlani’s people from offshore. Kā‘eokūlani and his warriors took shelter from the bombardment in a ravine, where they were trapped by Kalanikūpule’s people and slain to a man. Now the undisputed ruler of O‘ahu, Maui, Moloka‘i, Lanai, Kaua‘i, and Ni‘ihau, Kalanikūpule set his sights on the Big Island.
Thinking to gain a tactical advantage over Kamehameha by seizing all the muskets, cannons, and munitions on Brown’s ship, Kalanikūpule turned on his erstwhile English ally. Brown had earlier agreed to aid Kalanikūpule in exchange for some four hundred hogs. Kalanikūpule and his chieftains delivered these animals to Brown’s ship, the Jackal, on the last day of 1794, whereupon Brown invited them to remain on board to celebrate the haole New Year. Accepting Brown’s invitation, Kalanikūpule’s people killed him and most of the Jackal’s crew during the ensuing festivities, sparing a few of the Englishmen to help them sail the ship.
The Jackal now set sail for the Big Island, its deck crowded with scores of cheering O‘ahu warriors and its hold full of squealing pigs. But the British sailors thwarted Kalanikūpule with trickery. ‘Olohana told me the story. “Once away from Honolulu and abreast of Waikiki,” he said, “they made a great show of climbing the ship’s rigging, while at the same time smearing it with noxious oil.” The oil’s fumes so sickened Kalanikūpule, his chieftains, and their warriors that they demanded to return to Honolulu at once. Sometime later the Jackal again sortied for Hawai‘i, with Kalanikūpule, his general, Kamohomoho, and a few of their retainers on board. Kalanikūpule’s warriors, meanwhile, followed the ship in their sail canoes.
“The ship soon outdistanced the canoes,” ‘Olohana said. “And once they were well away, the sailors forced Kalanikūpule and the others into a boat and sent them ashore. In this, they showed more mercy to Kalanikūpule than he deserved.”
The British seamen had heard that Kamehameha was a great friend to Britain. Now they sailed directly for the Big Island just as Kalanikūpule had intended, albeit without him. “Kameha was delighted to receive them, and their weapons,” my father said. “He held a great feast for those haoles and gave them all manner of trade goods and produce.”
The next day the Jackal again set sail, escorted by the Fair American and a flotilla of double-hulled canoes. After waving farewell to the British sailors from the Fair American’s quarter deck, Kamehameha turned to his kahuna nui, who was standing next to him. “Holo‘ae, I believe that Kūkā‘ilimoku has spoken now,” he said. “Do you agree?”
“He has indeed spoken,” the priest replied.
Waikiki, 1795
Kamehameha landed on O‘ahu unopposed. His war canoes—more than five hundred—were drawn up along the beaches from Waikiki to Wai‘alae. Kameha and his closest advisers had sailed from Hawai‘i to O‘ahu in his new schooner, the Pelekane, which now lay at anchor offshore with the Fair American. The ships’ Hawai‘ian crews, now as adept as all but the most experienced haole mariners, had handled them smartly. Transferring with his chieftains from the Pelekane to his great double-hulled war canoe, Kamehameha came ashore in full battle regalia, standing at the forefront of the canoe’s central platform. My father stood directly behind him bearing the royal kahili. The vivid red and yellow feathers of Kamehameha’s new cloak and helmet, made expressly for this occasion by Ka‘ahumanu herself, fluttered in the morning’s light breeze. The feathers topping the kahili standard matched his helmet and cloak. Kameha held a long pololū spear in one hand and a musket in the other.
Kamehameha leaped from the canoe as its hulls fetched up on the narrow beach at Waikiki. More than ten thousand warriors awaited him, mustered for battle below Le‘ahi, which the haoles now call “Diamond Head.” They roared as Kameha and his chiefs, water lapping around their ankles, walked the full length of their ranks. Their shouts raced around the volcanic mount rising above them, rushing from the far end of Waikiki to the farthest reach of Wai‘alae like a rip current.
Hawai‘i’s mō‘ī had devoted much of the year since Vancouver’s departure to acquiring more weapons from visiting haole trading ships and drilling his warriors for the battle to come. Kameha’s people were armed with all manner of spears, clubs, and iron daggers. Also among their number were a thousand well-trained and well-provisioned musket bearers and more scores of men bearing extra powder and musket balls. Another one hundred warriors constituted a light artillery corps—bearing swivel guns and canister shot that Kamehameha had acquired in trade.
Upon landing, Kamehameha’s commanders had learned from the few people of Waikiki who had not fled from the invaders that Kalanikūpule and his warriors had withdrawn to the Nu‘uanu Valley. This valley climbs into the Ko‘olau Range, which straddles O‘ahu like a spine between its southern and northern
shores. Rather than oppose Kameha’s formidable invasion force along the beaches’ broad front, Kalanikūpule sought to lure him into battle within the valley’s narrower confines, where, he hoped, he and his people could gain a tactical advantage. To this end, Kamehameha’s commanders learned, Kalanikūpule and his people had invested a village situated about a third of the way up the valley, on the heights overlooking the Nu‘uanu Stream.
My father and some of the other chiefs were disturbed by this news. “Kalanikūpule will have the advantage of high ground,” Kamanawa warned.
“It is of no concern,” Kameha said. “Kūkā‘ilimoku is with us.” Turning to his waiting soldiers, he shouted, “Warriors of Hawai‘i nei, we will not be denied the fruits of victory this day! Let us march!”
With Kamehameha at their forefront, ten thousand Hawai‘ian fighting men commenced their advance on the Nu‘uanu Valley, where Kalanikūpule and his people waited. Also waiting with Kalanikūpule was Ka‘iana.
Relations between Kamehameha and Ka‘iana, never truly amicable, had frayed considerably since Vancouver’s departure. For his part, Ka‘iana was angry that Ka‘ahumanu would no longer speak to him. He rightly blamed Kamehameha for this, but dared not say so openly. Instead, he complained to anyone who would listen, including my father, that Kamehameha was not sufficiently grateful for his services. “Who first brought him muskets? Who first showed our people how to use them?” he demanded. “I did, and yet he raises these haoles, ‘Olohana and ‘Aikake, above me, and he trusts the Kona chiefs before me—I who am also a direct descendant of the noble Keawe.”
When Ka‘iana’s latest complaints reached Kamehameha’s ears, as Ka‘iana may have intended, they only served to harden Kameha against him.
Unbeknownst to Ka‘iana at this time, Ke‘eaumoku and Kame‘iamoku were urging their mō‘ī to cast him out, even to kill him. “He is a trouble-maker,” they said. “Better to be done with him.”
Once There Was Fire: A Novel of Old Hawaii Page 39